Toki Tori on iPhone is a challenging joy

A year after coming to the Wii, Toki Tori has arrived on the iPhone. Spoiler …

The last time I played Toki Tori, I was still in high school, and I was playing it on the Game Boy Color I had liberated from my brother's room. It was a cute, challenging little strategy game, and I fondly recall spending many hours working to make the strange little chicken on my screen gather up as many goofy-looking eggs as possible. Now, Toki Tori has been released for a new generation of gamers, on both the Wii and the iPhone, and the latter version is an excellent addition to the App Store catalog.

The basic premise of the game is that Toki Tori is a chicken on a farm that suddenly finds itself egg-less. Toki takes it upon himself to rescue his unborn family, which brings him through dozens of levels across four different environments. In each level, Toki has to recapture all the eggs placed around the map, which is easier said than done. Toki will move to an area of the map that players tap on, but only if he can get there with ease. If he can't make it easily, players will have to employ various tools like portals, ice beams (to immobilize enemies) and portable walkways. A puzzle platformer like this could go pretty bad pretty quick if the character pathfinding was weak, but it's actually incredibly strong in Toki Tori.

The game is essentially a port of the WiiWare version that came out last year, which was actually an enhanced version of the Game Boy title from 2001. While that probably sounds a bit underwhelming to someone who's unfamiliar with the general gameplay, anyone who's had a chance to play either the original or Wii version will most likely be glad to hear this, as the original mechanics were actually a great deal of fun.

Visually, Toki Tori is practically identical to the version that arrived last year on the Wii—3-D graphics are used in the 2-D level—which means it looks great for an iPhone game. The overall effect is that Toki Tori is one of the most adorable games you're likely to see on the platform.

Ultimately, Chillingo's version of Toki Tori is a great game. Not only is it well-constructed, but it's challenging, fun, and a joy to look at. Anyone who likes titles involving platforming and/or strategy can't go wrong with this, and it'll seem like a bargain at $4.99 for all the hours of gameplay it provides.